IDEAS home Printed from https://ideas.repec.org/a/gam/jsusta/v13y2021i7p3871-d527739.html
   My bibliography  Save this article

Economic and Environmental Assessment of Two Different Rain Water Harvesting Systems for Agriculture

Author

Listed:
  • Luigi Pari

    (Consiglio per la Ricerca in Agricoltura e l’analisi dell’Economia Agraria (CREA)—Centro di Ricerca Ingegneria e Trasformazioni Agroalimentari, Via della Pascolare 16, Monterotondo, 00015 Rome, Italy)

  • Alessandro Suardi

    (Consiglio per la Ricerca in Agricoltura e l’analisi dell’Economia Agraria (CREA)—Centro di Ricerca Ingegneria e Trasformazioni Agroalimentari, Via della Pascolare 16, Monterotondo, 00015 Rome, Italy)

  • Walter Stefanoni

    (Consiglio per la Ricerca in Agricoltura e l’analisi dell’Economia Agraria (CREA)—Centro di Ricerca Ingegneria e Trasformazioni Agroalimentari, Via della Pascolare 16, Monterotondo, 00015 Rome, Italy)

  • Francesco Latterini

    (Consiglio per la Ricerca in Agricoltura e l’analisi dell’Economia Agraria (CREA)—Centro di Ricerca Ingegneria e Trasformazioni Agroalimentari, Via della Pascolare 16, Monterotondo, 00015 Rome, Italy)

  • Nadia Palmieri

    (Consiglio per la Ricerca in Agricoltura e l’analisi dell’Economia Agraria (CREA)—Centro di Ricerca Ingegneria e Trasformazioni Agroalimentari, Via della Pascolare 16, Monterotondo, 00015 Rome, Italy)

Abstract

Increasing aridity and subsequent water scarcity are currently among the major problems of agriculture. Rainwater harvesting could represent a way to tackle this issue, and, as a consequence, scientific research has been more and more focused on such topic. On the other hand, few scientific studies related to economic and environmental assessment of rainwater harvesting systems in agriculture are available. The present study carried out an economic and environmental analysis of two different systems for rainwater harvesting: a typical pond and an innovative flexible water storage system (FWSS). The environmental and economic performance of the systems was compared using the Life Cycle Assessment (LCA) and Life Cycle Costing (LCC) methodologies, referring to a functional unit (FU) of 1 m 3 of storable water. The FWSS showed better environmental end economic performance than the pond system, resulting with both lower environmental impacts (17.04 g per m 3 CO 2 vs 28.2 g per m 3 CO 2 ) and lower costs (16.94 € per m 3 vs 20.41 € per m 3 ). Moreover, the pond system was more impactful than the FWSS for all the 17 categories investigated. Therefore, the FWSS can be a suitable solution for water harvesting in agriculture sector, showing interesting features for farmers.

Suggested Citation

  • Luigi Pari & Alessandro Suardi & Walter Stefanoni & Francesco Latterini & Nadia Palmieri, 2021. "Economic and Environmental Assessment of Two Different Rain Water Harvesting Systems for Agriculture," Sustainability, MDPI, vol. 13(7), pages 1-13, March.
    • Handle: RePEc:gam:jsusta:v:13:y:2021:i:7:p:3871-:d:527739
    as

    Download full text from publisher

    File URL: https://www.mdpi.com/2071-1050/13/7/3871/pdf
    Download Restriction: no
    File URL: https://www.mdpi.com/2071-1050/13/7/3871/
    Download Restriction: no
    ---><---

    References listed on IDEAS

    as
    1. Qinwen Qi & Janeth Marwa & Tulinave Burton Mwamila & Willis Gwenzi & Chicgoua Noubactep, 2019. "Making Rainwater Harvesting a Key Solution for Water Management: The Universality of the Kilimanjaro Concept," Sustainability, MDPI, vol. 11(20), pages 1-15, October.
    2. Kumar, Shalander & Ramilan, Thiagarajah & Ramarao, C.A. & Rao, Ch. Srinivasa & Whitbread, Anthony, 2016. "Farm level rainwater harvesting across different agro climatic regions of India: Assessing performance and its determinants," Agricultural Water Management, Elsevier, vol. 176(C), pages 55-66.
    3. Xiaobo Xue Romeiko, 2019. "A Comparative Life Cycle Assessment of Crop Systems Irrigated with the Groundwater and Reclaimed Water in Northern China," Sustainability, MDPI, vol. 11(10), pages 1-17, May.
    4. Nadia Palmieri & Alessandro Suardi & Vincenzo Alfano & Luigi Pari, 2020. "Circular Economy Model: Insights from a Case Study in South Italy," Sustainability, MDPI, vol. 12(8), pages 1-11, April.
    5. Luigi Pari & Alessandro Suardi & Walter Stefanoni & Francesco Latterini & Nadia Palmieri, 2020. "Environmental and Economic Assessment of Castor Oil Supply Chain: A Case Study," Sustainability, MDPI, vol. 12(16), pages 1-16, August.
    6. Nadia Palmieri & Alessandro Suardi & Luigi Pari, 2020. "Italian Consumers’ Willingness to Pay for Eucalyptus Firewood," Sustainability, MDPI, vol. 12(7), pages 1-14, March.
    7. Miguel Brandão & Roland Clift & Llorenç Milà i Canals & Lauren Basson, 2010. "A Life-Cycle Approach to Characterising Environmental and Economic Impacts of Multifunctional Land-Use Systems: An Integrated Assessment in the UK," Sustainability, MDPI, vol. 2(12), pages 1-30, December.
    8. Nadia Palmieri & Alessandro Suardi & Francesco Latterini & Luigi Pari, 2020. "The Eucalyptus Firewood: Understanding Consumers’ Behaviour and Motivations," Agriculture, MDPI, vol. 10(11), pages 1-12, October.
    Full references (including those not matched with items on IDEAS)

    Citations

    Citations are extracted by the CitEc Project, subscribe to its RSS feed for this item.
    as


    Cited by:

    1. Kuanfu Chen & Yujie Tao & Weiwei Shi, 2022. "Recent Advances in Water Harvesting: A Review of Materials, Devices and Applications," Sustainability, MDPI, vol. 14(10), pages 1-25, May.

    Most related items

    These are the items that most often cite the same works as this one and are cited by the same works as this one.
    1. Nadia Palmieri & Roberto Tomasone & Carla Cedrola & Daniele Puri & Mauro Pagano, 2023. "Factors Affecting Disabled Consumer Preferences for an Electric Vehicle for Rural Mobility: An Italian Experimental Study," Sustainability, MDPI, vol. 15(6), pages 1-16, March.
    2. Nadia Palmieri & Walter Stefanoni & Francesco Latterini & Luigi Pari, 2022. "Italian Consumer Preferences for Eucalyptus Honey: An Exploratory Study," Sustainability, MDPI, vol. 14(13), pages 1-11, June.
    3. Kledja Canaj & Andi Mehmeti & Julio Berbel, 2021. "The Economics of Fruit and Vegetable Production Irrigated with Reclaimed Water Incorporating the Hidden Costs of Life Cycle Environmental Impacts," Resources, MDPI, vol. 10(9), pages 1-13, September.
    4. Boini Narsimlu & J. V. N. S. Prasad & A. Amarender Reddy & Gajjala Ravindra Chary & Kodigal A. Gopinath & K. B. Sridhar & J. K. Balyan & Anil K. Kothari & Vinod Kumar Singh, 2024. "Catchment Storage Command Relationship for Sustainable Rainfed Agriculture in the Semi-Arid Regions of Rajasthan, India," Sustainability, MDPI, vol. 16(10), pages 1-21, May.
    5. Halkos, George E & Aslanidis, Panagiotis-Stavros & Landis, Conrad & Papadaki, Lydia & Koundouri, Phoebe, 2024. "A review on primary and cascading hazards by exploring individuals’ willingness-to-pay for urban sustainability policies," MPRA Paper 122262, University Library of Munich, Germany.
    6. Teng Wu & Fanting Kong & Lei Shi & Qing Xie & Yongfei Sun & Changlin Chen, 2022. "Power Consumption Influence Test of Castor Disc-Cutting Device," Agriculture, MDPI, vol. 12(10), pages 1-14, September.
    7. Giulio Fusco, 2022. "Climate Change and Food Security in the Northern and Eastern African Regions: A Panel Data Analysis," Sustainability, MDPI, vol. 14(19), pages 1-10, October.
    8. Andi Mehmeti & Kledja Canaj, 2022. "Environmental Assessment of Wastewater Treatment and Reuse for Irrigation: A Mini-Review of LCA Studies," Resources, MDPI, vol. 11(10), pages 1-20, October.
    9. Luigi Pari & Efthymia Alexopoulou & Walter Stefanoni & Francesco Latterini & Chris Cavalaris & Nadia Palmieri, 2022. "The Eco-Efficiency of Castor Supply Chain: A Greek Case Study," Agriculture, MDPI, vol. 12(2), pages 1-12, February.
    10. Francis Oremo & Richard Mulwa & Nicholas Oguge, 2021. "Sustainable water access and willingness of smallholder irrigators to pay for on-farm water storage systems in Tsavo sub-catchment, Kenya," Environment, Development and Sustainability: A Multidisciplinary Approach to the Theory and Practice of Sustainable Development, Springer, vol. 23(2), pages 1371-1391, February.
    11. Karolina Szalkowska & Monika Zubrowska-Sudol, 2023. "Opportunities for Water Reuse Implementation in Metropolitan Areas in a Complex Approach with an LCA Analysis, Taking Warsaw, Poland as an Example," Sustainability, MDPI, vol. 15(2), pages 1-19, January.
    12. Birhanu Zemadim Birhanu & Kalifa Traoré & Murali Krishna Gumma & Félix Badolo & Ramadjita Tabo & Anthony Michael Whitbread, 2019. "A watershed approach to managing rainfed agriculture in the semiarid region of southern Mali: integrated research on water and land use," Environment, Development and Sustainability: A Multidisciplinary Approach to the Theory and Practice of Sustainable Development, Springer, vol. 21(5), pages 2459-2485, October.
    13. Kumar, Shalander & Craufurd, Peter & Haileslassie, Amare & Ramilan, Thiagarajah & Rathore, Abhishek & Whitbread, Anthony, 2019. "Farm typology analysis and technology assessment: An application in an arid region of South Asia," Land Use Policy, Elsevier, vol. 88(C).
    14. Dimitris Skalkos & Ioanna S. Kosma & Eleni Chasioti & Thomas Bintsis & Haralabos C. Karantonis, 2021. "Consumers’ Perception on Traceability of Greek Traditional Foods in the Post-COVID-19 Era," Sustainability, MDPI, vol. 13(22), pages 1-17, November.
    15. Teodora Stillitano & Emanuele Spada & Nathalie Iofrida & Giacomo Falcone & Anna Irene De Luca, 2021. "Sustainable Agri-Food Processes and Circular Economy Pathways in a Life Cycle Perspective: State of the Art of Applicative Research," Sustainability, MDPI, vol. 13(5), pages 1-28, February.
    16. Dimitris Skalkos & Katerina Bamicha & Ioanna S. Kosma & Elpida Samara, 2023. "Greek Semi-Hard and Hard Cheese Consumers’ Perception in the New Global Era," Sustainability, MDPI, vol. 15(7), pages 1-18, March.
    17. Dimitris Skalkos & Ioanna S. Kosma & Areti Vasiliou & Raquel P. F. Guine, 2021. "Consumers’ Trust in Greek Traditional Foods in the Post COVID-19 Era," Sustainability, MDPI, vol. 13(17), pages 1-20, September.
    18. Xiaobo Xue Romeiko & Zhijian Guo & Yulei Pang & Eun Kyung Lee & Xuesong Zhang, 2020. "Comparing Machine Learning Approaches for Predicting Spatially Explicit Life Cycle Global Warming and Eutrophication Impacts from Corn Production," Sustainability, MDPI, vol. 12(4), pages 1-19, February.
    19. Falk, Thomas & Kumar, Shalander & Srigiri, Srinivasa, 2019. "Experimental games for developing institutional capacity to manage common water infrastructure in India," Agricultural Water Management, Elsevier, vol. 221(C), pages 260-269.
    20. Hakeem Musaed & Ahmed El-Kenawy & Mohamed El Alfy, 2022. "Morphometric, Meteorological, and Hydrologic Characteristics Integration for Rainwater Harvesting Potential Assessment in Southeast Beni Suef (Egypt)," Sustainability, MDPI, vol. 14(21), pages 1-30, October.

    Corrections

    All material on this site has been provided by the respective publishers and authors. You can help correct errors and omissions. When requesting a correction, please mention this item's handle: RePEc:gam:jsusta:v:13:y:2021:i:7:p:3871-:d:527739. See general information about how to correct material in RePEc.

    If you have authored this item and are not yet registered with RePEc, we encourage you to do it here. This allows to link your profile to this item. It also allows you to accept potential citations to this item that we are uncertain about.

    If CitEc recognized a bibliographic reference but did not link an item in RePEc to it, you can help with this form .

    If you know of missing items citing this one, you can help us creating those links by adding the relevant references in the same way as above, for each refering item. If you are a registered author of this item, you may also want to check the "citations" tab in your RePEc Author Service profile, as there may be some citations waiting for confirmation.

    For technical questions regarding this item, or to correct its authors, title, abstract, bibliographic or download information, contact: MDPI Indexing Manager (email available below). General contact details of provider: https://www.mdpi.com .

    Please note that corrections may take a couple of weeks to filter through the various RePEc services.

    IDEAS is a RePEc service. RePEc uses bibliographic data supplied by the respective publishers.